It feels like we’ve been bidding farewell to Freddy Mercury for a while now. From the re-release of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, paired with ‘These Are the Days of Our Lives’, in the weeks following his death, to George Michael’s tributes on the ‘Five Live EP’, to this.

Living on My Own, by Freddie Mercury (his 1^st and only solo #1)

2 weeks, from 8^th – 22^nd August 1993

And of the three, this remix of his minor 1985 hit is the tribute that Freddie himself might have enjoyed the most. On the one hand it is a shame that his solitary solo number one isn’t a blistering rocker; but then he was a musician who never let himself be restricted within one genre. ‘Living on My Own’ is updated nicely for the early-mid nineties, with a chilled out house beat, by a production trio called No More Brothers and, although it was still listed on the charts as the 1985 original, it was undoubtedly this remix that sent it to #1.

I say that Freddie would have liked this version and, presumptuous as that might be, if you listen to the original, from his ‘Mr. Bad Guy’ solo album, then it was already much more dance than rock. The lyrics, meanwhile, are very personal: Sometimes I feel I’m gonna break down and cry, Nowhere to go, Nothing to do with my time… I get lonely… They’re based heavily on quotations from Greta Garbo (which feels very Freddie Mercury…) and each chorus ends on the positive mantra: Got to be some good times ahead… Though knowing how soon it all would end, that line is tinged with sadness.

I will also give a shoutout to an earlier remix – which I initially thought was the chart-topping version – by Julian Raymond. This is my favourite of the three versions, with a faster, industrial beat, more of Mercury’s trademark yodelling, alongside a frenetic piano line. It was commissioned as part of the ‘Freddie Mercury Album’, released in November 1992 to mark the 1^st anniversary of his death, but never released as a single.

The video to the 1993 version of ‘Living on My Own’ was the same as the 1985 one, and featured footage of a Drag Ball held for Mercury’s 39^th birthday party. I love this quote: “Because of the garishly costumed homosexuals and transvestites celebrating a decadent, raucous party in the video clip, the BBC long refused to broadcast the music video on its channels.” Good old Beeb, always ready to ban those garish homosexuals…

I hadn’t realised quite how well Freddie Mercury’s solo career – while nothing compared to Queen’s discography – had been ticking along since the mid-80s, when he made the Top 10 with ‘Love Kills’. The ‘Living on My Own’ remix was his seventh, and final, Top 20 hit, and a huge smash across Europe. (Especially in France, where it did a Bryan Adams and stayed at #1 for fifteen weeks! Bryan or Freddie… I know who I’d rather have clogging up the number one spot…)

With this we can finally bid farewell to Freddie Mercury. Three number one singles in his lifetime, two after his death, and one well-intentioned tribute in-between. For my money, he is the greatest frontman of all time. Not only could he rock with the very best; he could do opera, musical theatre, pop, disco, camp ditties about girls with fat bottoms… And he sounds just as at home here, on a house track released two years after his death, as he does anywhere.